Our Money Pit

I have to say that I am very familiar with a vehicle being an endless problem. I currently drive a 1984 pickup which has fewer things right with it than wrong. But that's not what I'm writing about. (I also had to deal with an Isuzu Rodeo when I got married, but that's another book that will never be written. I still twitch at night when I think about it.)
Recently I read a post on my sister-in-laws blog about a recent tire escapade and I laughed pretty hard. I too have sunk what seems like an endless amount of money into our "new" car. First of all, last winter was like driving on an ice rink with the "high performance all season tires" that it had. Yeah, lies. So we decided to get some soft composite winter tires. But hey, if your going to pay for mounting, balancing, dismounting, and re-balancing for every season you might as well buy a new set of rims. Right? They'll pay for themselves. That felt pretty good on the debit card.
So the winter goes by great. We put our "high performance all season tires" with our new rims on the car for summer driving. Low and behold, the tire bands had broken apart and were waiting for a pot hole to have a catastrophic failure (see picture above). I didn't want my wife to have that much excitement in her day, so I decided to go and see what it would take to get some new tires. Well as it turns out, it was only really bad on one tire, and since you can't just replace one when the others are half gone (yeah, you would think a tire should last a little longer that half it's life. However, the previous owner didn't see fit to grace us with the warranty on the said "high perfo....junk tires"). I didn't strike a gold mine in the back yard of my rental apartment over the winter, so I still was in the condition I was and the beginning of the winter, poor. Only more poor. So what does a guy do. I still didn't want my wife to have that much excitement on her way to school so I busted out my beaten debit card and only bought two new tires. Yes, the front are bad, but I have to put that on in the hands of the Lord. We are trying desperately to make it to the end of the summer to my internship. If we can just get there alive I will be so, oh so happy.
All you people out there battling with the preserve my life vs. fix my car...I feel your pain. If it were my car, I wouldn't care. I suck CO (carbon monoxide) from my broken exhaust on my truck to prove it. But that's another story. I hope I don't get too much brain damage. I try and drive with the window down. Winter was tough. My heater doesn't work either.
Paul